


Shay

by senseight



Category: SKAM Austin
Genre: Gen, a little bit of austin!even, non-binary shay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/senseight/pseuds/senseight
Summary: adapted from a piece of 3x08 of the original series, shay ponders their name after coming to terms with their non-binary identity.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Shay

Shay.

A single syllable, spoken like an exhale. They pondered the name in their head. The name that molded their entire existence like the baking of bread. The name that they always turned their head towards if someone called them forward, or sighed when they were pushing them away. A name that morphed and shifted the entire way the world saw them.

Now, they were considering whether to give it away.

It’s not like this is the first time the thought had inched through the corners of their mind. Even when they were a kid, they were obsessed with the origin of the name. _Where did it come from? How was it chosen for other people? How did everyone else with the name feel about it? Are there people like_ me _with this name?_

The sun was already setting when Shay was sitting across from their parents a few years back, when their problems merely sifted beneath the surface. Earlier that day, Shay’s mother had struggled to convince them to fit into a brightly colored baby blue sundress blotted with elaborate floral patterns for an old friend’s birthday party.

“Why did you guys even choose the name for me, anyway?” Shay’s voice was energized, not nearly as mellowed out as it has since then.

Their mother, tossing her waist-length, dark brown twists over her shoulder let out a scoff as if she was nudging God Himself with a don’t-get-me-started recollection of the past. “Do we have some stories about choosing your name. Well, first of all, I had a name I really loved. Me and your dad _both_ loved, actually. Unfortunately your grandmother refused to even entertain the idea––”

Pulling his half-empty drink away from his lips, their father shook his head. “ _Because_ it reminded her of someone she knew in middle school.”

“That she hated. With a passion.” Their mother laughed. “It got us into a few arguments.”

“Just a few?” Shay didn’t quite believe that.

“Your dad isn’t fond of standing up to his mother,” she said. Though her tone was joking, there was a thread of truth to it that needled through the words. Dad already started to pack up things once they heard the birthday girl start to wearily complain to her parents. Their mother stood up from the picnic table with him, but continued to speak. “But we had other names. Other names that me and your dad couldn’t really agree on. But, we finally came to a conclusion.”

“Co-signed,” their dad added. “Even by your grandmother.”

Shay was the name they held when they were rolling through the grass in the middle of summer, hot off the trampoline with Tyler at their side. They hadn’t met Marlon that year, but that missing part of their relationship hadn’t felt like a chasm just yet. Four-year-olds with their whole lives ahead of them.

“What do you think about me changing my name?” They asked Tyler in garage. The heat of Austin was piling through the open garage, wafting a breeze that felt like nothing more than dead heat. It reminded Shay of that summer with Tyler, when it was just the two of them.

He took a moment to parse the thought, iron it out before he made a thoughtful assessment. “Is that something you want to do?”

“I don’t know. It’s definitely something that’s crossed my mind.”

“I want you to do whatever you feel comfortable doing. I don’t think my opinion matters much.” Tyler’s lips formed a smile.

He was probably right.

Shay was a name that didn’t have any tether to the gender they had so many conflicted feelings about being born associated with. It was neither feminine or masculine, it was just _Shay_.

There was a metallic knock on the glass door in front of them. A girl Shay could never get tired of seeing, fingers lined with a wide variety of rings they knew would be off within hours, red lipstick smeared across her full lips in a haste, and a grinning smile to top all of it off. Shay wondered if she smiled thinking about them like they did. She breathed expeditiously onto the glass, a cloud of stream forming a circle like an obedient ink blot. She drew a heart, then started to write their name. It was backwards, which made the girl curse, “Fuck.” It was muffled but the rasp of her voice could cut through anything.

Maybe that name was for them after all.

_Shay._


End file.
